28 Minutes Too Long

Rating: Null/10 (2 May 2004)

With the current worries about bird flu and SARS, this could have hit a deep nerve. But instead this is an unforgivably mediocre movie. Things start to go wrong from the foundation up. There's no clear premise or metaphor, just some random and not very coherent thoughts about man's violent nature - not exactly a unique theme, and one that's been handled much better elsewhere.

Technically it sucks too. The direction is lazy and haphazard, and it's obvious from the deleted scenes and alternative endings that the director and producer had no clear vision of where they wanted the story to go, or much of an idea of why they were trying to tell a story in the first place. (Although getting loads of cash to play with is always a good incentive.)
The photography is laboured and self-indulgent, and in spite of some wide pans manages to feel claustrophobic, as if most of the story were happening elsewhere. The acting is average, and the script is a mongrel rip-off of countless older films. The writing uses swearing, of which there's plenty, as a substitute for passion and excitement, of which there's almost none at all.
The bottom line is the film gives the viewer absolutely no reason to care about anything that's happening on the screen. If you've never seen a horror movie before you may still find it kind of creepy. If you have, it comes near the bottom of the pile.
But it's not a dead loss. Ironically, the film's real value may be as an unintentional slice of life mockumentary of the Britain of the early 21st century - superficial, detached characters, charmless emotional calculation, and ugly urban sprawl. Capturing the feel of England today is the one thing the film does very well. (Then again, it hard not to wonder what it means that it does it so successfully with 99.9% of the population either dead or absent.)
Overall, this is just an English B-movie and would probably have worked better on TV. It's a decent enough filler, but not worth more than 6/10.